Death Sworn by Leah Cypess | Book Review #138

“When a young sorceress is exiled to teach magic to a clan of assassins, she will find thatsecretscan be even deadlier than swords. Teen Vogue proclaimed, “It’s impossible not to fall deep into the dark yet alluring world of sorcery and secret assassins.” A dangerous and eerie fantasy about murder, shocking discoveries, and fiery star-crossed romance that readers of Cinda Williams Chima and Robin LaFevers won’t be able to put down.

Ileni is losing her magic. And that means she’s losing everything: her position as the rising star of her people, her purpose in life, and even the young man she loves. Sent to the assassins’ cave hidden deep within the mountains, she expects no one will ever hear from her again. The last two sorcerers sent died within weeks of each other. Accidents? Or something more sinister? As Ileni navigates the dangers—both natural and human—of the caves, she’ll discover secrets that have been kept for decades. And she’ll find an ally in Sorin, the deadly young man who could be the assassins’ next leader. With Sorin determined to protect her, sparks—magical and romantic—will fly. But will even he understand the choice she must make in the end?”

I’m pretty sure that I picked this book up randomly at the library, because the cover was familiar to me. Turns out, I’m actually glad that I did pick it up!

The events that happened in Death Sworn is actually pretty exciting! Right when the book starts, we’re plopped down into Ileni’s story. She seems to be thinking of something, and then we’re just there, with her, along the way to wherever she’s going. I love when authors do this with their stories.

‘She was seventeen years old, and she felt as ancient as the rocks surrounding her.’

As I said in the above paragraph, we’re thrown into Ileni’s story. Ileni is the main character of this book, and we follow her side of the story very closely. There are a few times when there was a different point of view. Aside from those few times though, Ileni is our guide through her story. Ileni is a 17-year-old girl, and she’s a sorcerer. She’s been forced to teach assassin’s magic, and it is there, within the mountain surrounded by trained assassin’s, she is expected to find solve the last two murdered teachers on her own.

I believe it’s definitely safe to say that Death Sworn isn’t a book to be missed. There are points in the novel that are action-y, and there are points where the story is a little less action-y. I definitely have my favourite parts in Death Sworn, and I was a little confused by how this one character was described, but that’s okay because the was another part of the book were he was described again, and I was like “Huh. So that’s what he looks like. Okay.”

‘He released her, his hand falling back to his side. “It is not wise to surprise an assassin.”“Sometimes I’m not wise.”‘

The action in this book is definitely not boring, but it issomething to appreciate. The way that Cypess had written the action scenes is mind boggling to me. The way that they’re written seems to be detailed oriented, but not overly detailed to the point of distraction. — The scenes in this book that weren’t action-y are something to remember as well! I enjoyed these scenes as much as the action scenes.

The mix of both the action scene’s combined with the all of the other scenes creates this novel where you don’t know what’s going to happen next. I mean, I had quite a few predictions throughout the book, but none of them came to fruition. So I ended up just going along with the course of the book!

To just talk about Ileni for a moment… — I love Ileni’s character. It’s been a while since I’ve read such a realistic character; aside from her magic of course. Ileni doesn’t believe in violence.. But Ileni can undermine and be just as violent as the rest of them. She can be just as conniving as anyone else. I like that Ileni is a realistic character. I like that she seems human in every way. She doesn’t try to live above the standards of others. I have to appreciate the fact that even though she knows some stuff has to happen, she takes a step back from the situation and seems to actually think things out. Then she does what she honestly truly believes is right, even if it’s against her own morals. And Ileni is just so honest. Even when she doesn’t have to be, even if the truth embarrasses herself.

‘”You’ll think you’ll find answers out there? He shook his head. I can tell from experience that you won’t.”
She lifted her chin and met his black eyes. “But nobody in these caves even knows there’s a question.”‘

If you can’t tell from what I’ve said about Death Sworn already, I enjoyed reading this book, and I really enjoyed getting to know the characters. And I will be reading the next book, Death Marked.

Death Sworn has quite a bit of action. The book also has this honest feel to it. Like, what you see is what you get. The way these characters are written..they act like they don’t care what people think of them. But that, deep down they do care about what people think.

Death Sworn is a Young Adult Fantasy novel that has a touch of Romance, and quite a bit of Magic involved. Overall, I found Death Sworn to be a brilliant blend of Fantasy and Romance.

Welcome!

Hello, my name is Adele. I’m a 20-something year-old bibliophile, living on the West Coast of Canada. Here, on Adele Is Reading, I mainly post book reviews and bookish related content talking about the books I’ve read.
I mostly read Young Adult (YA), New Adult (NA), but I tend to branch out into other points of view (genres) as well.